Voice messaging system

ABSTRACT

A network-based voice messaging system is provided. A voice message is received at a network. The network converts the voice message into a text message by utilizing speech recognition software. The text message is transmitted to the intended recipient as an electronic mail (e-mail) message or facsimile document and is received by the intended recipient on conventional text receiving equipment.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] The present invention relates to a method and apparatus forprocessing and transmitting a voice message. More specifically, theinvention provides for converting a voice message to a text message andtransmitting the text message to the intended recipient. A serviceprovider network receives the voice message transmitted by the senderand converts the message into a text format. The network then transmitsthe text message to the intended recipient.

[0002] Currently, it is possible for a sender of a message to send textmessages to an intended recipient. These messages can be electronic mailmessages that are generated on the personal computer of the sender andtransmitted over a network to the intended recipient's personalcomputer. Alternatively, these text messages can be documents that aretransmitted to the intended recipient by utilizing a facsimile machine.However, with both of these known methods for sending a text message toan intended recipient, the sender of the message must have access totransmission equipment that is capable of sending the text message,e.g., a personal computer or a facsimile machine.

[0003] The sender of a message who wants to send a text message to anintended recipient may not always have access to conventional texttransmission equipment. For example, a sending party that wants to sendan e-mail message to an intended recipient could be at an airport andthus not have access to conventional e-mail transmission equipment.Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a capability where a personwho desires to transmit a text message to an intended recipient couldsend the text message to the intended recipient without requiring thesender to have access to conventional transmission equipment for sendingtext messages.

[0004] Currently, it is also possible for an intended recipient of avoice mail message to receive the voice mail message from the sendingparty. However, as with the situation above where the sender of a textmessage must have access to conventional transmission equipment, theintended recipient of a voice mail message must have access to aconventional telephone in order to receive the voice mail message. Assuch, it may not always be possible for the intended recipient of avoice mail message to receive the message at a time when desired.Therefore, it would also be desirable to provide a capability to receivea voice mail message where the person who desires to receive the voicemail message does not have access to a conventional telephone.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0005] The present invention overcomes the drawbacks in theabove-described communication scenarios. In accordance with the presentinvention, a network-based voice messaging system is provided. Thesystem provides the capability to convert a voice mail message to a textmessage.

[0006] A voice message is received at a network. The network convertsthe voice message into a text message by utilizing known speechrecognition software. The text message is transmitted to the intendedrecipient as an electronic mail (e-mail) message or facsimile documentand is received by the intended recipient on conventional text receivingequipment. Thus, a sending party that desires to send a text message butwho does not have access to conventional text transmission equipmentcould utilize a telephone connected to a network to provide a voicemessage for an intended recipient. The network would convert the voicemessage into a text message and transmit the text message to theintended recipient. In the second situation where an intended recipientof a voice message desires to receive the message but does not haveaccess to a conventional telephone, the intended recipient could havethe network convert the voice message to a text message and transmit thetext message to the personal computer or facsimile machine of theintended recipient.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0007]FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment for the voice messaging system ofthe present invention.

[0008]FIG. 2 illustrates a process flow chart for the method steps inpracticing an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0009]FIG. 1 illustrates a functional block diagram for one embodimentof the network-based voice messaging system of the present invention. Avoice message, or oral message, is input into network 120 by utilizingtelephone 100. Telephone 100 is connected to network 120 through localexchange carrier switch 108. Upon receipt of the voice message atnetwork 120, network 120 will convert the voice message into a textmessage by utilizing known speech recognition software 124, which isstored in network 120. After network 120 converts the voice message to atext message, network 120 transmits the text message to the intendedrecipient's receiving apparatus 130, such as by connection through LECswitch 109, where the message is received by the intended recipient.

[0010] Network 120 may be an integrated services provider network or atelephone network. As such, network 120 provides interconnection betweenthe sender's telephone 100 and the intended recipient's receivingapparatus 130. Network 120 is capable of converting the voice messageinto a variety of different types of text messages by utilizing speechrecognition software 124 and standardized text formatting software. Forexample, network 120 is capable of converting the input voice messageinto either an electronic mail (e-mail) message or a text document to betransmitted as a facsimile document. Network 120 contains transmissionequipment to transmit the converted text message to the intendedrecipient's receiving apparatus 130.

[0011] The intended recipient's receiving apparatus 130 may be a varietyof different types of equipment, e.g., a personal computer or afacsimile machine. All that is required is that the apparatus be capableof receiving the particular type of text-formatted message that istransmitted by network 120, for example, a personal computer forreceiving electronic mail (e-mail) messages or a facsimile machine forreceiving fax documents. For purposes of illustration, the presentinvention will be described in an embodiment where the voice message isconverted into an electronic mail message and transmitted to theintended recipient's personal computer 130.

[0012] In continuing with the description of an embodiment of thepresent invention, the invention has utility for a person who desires tosend an electronic mail message to an intended recipient but who doesnot have access to an electronic mail transmission device. In order tosend an electronic mail message to an intended recipient in thiscircumstance, the sending party, who is a subscriber to network 120,dials into network 120 by utilizing telephone 100. After dialing intonetwork 120, network 120 will ask the calling party if they would liketo place a voice phone call or would like to send an electronic mailmessage. If the calling party desires to place a voice phone call, thecalling party will be prompted to dial the phone number of the desiredparty and network 120 will attempt to establish the phone connection. Ifthe calling party desires to send an electronic mail message, thenetwork will prompt the calling party for information in order tocompose and transmit the e-mail message.

[0013] When sending an electronic mail message to an intended recipient,the sending party must identify the intended recipient for the e-mailmessage so that the intended recipient's e-mail address can bedetermined. There are many possible ways for identifying who theintended recipient is. All that is required is that an electronic mailaddress for the recipient be ultimately determined. The easiest methodfor determining this information is for the sender to directly input thee-mail address for the recipient into the network when recording thevoice message. Network 120 can prompt the calling party to input theintended recipient's e-mail address. The calling party can input thee-mail address by speaking the e-mail address into network 120 andhaving speech recognition software 124 interpret the spoken e-mailaddress, or the sending party could enter the recipient's e-mail addressby utilizing the telephone's keypad.

[0014] Alternative methods for determining the e-mail address for therecipient could be for the sender to input other information identifyingthe recipient into the network. For example, the sender could speak therecipient's name into the network. If this methodology was utilized, thenetwork would utilize this information to access database 122 tocorrelate the name of the recipient to an e-mail address for therecipient. Database 122 contains identification information forpotential recipients. This identification information could be, aspreviously mentioned, the name of the recipient. As such, the sender canenter any identification information for the intended recipient into thenetwork and the network would utilize this information to obtain thecorrect e-mail address for the recipient by accessing database 122. Theonly requirement is that the identification information entered by thesender must also be stored in database 122 so that correlation of theidentification information to an e-mail address can be accomplished.

[0015] Information can be input to database 122 by either the callingparty or by the network itself. The network can provide for enteringinformation into database 122 by utilizing, for example, subscriberinformation provided to the network if the intended recipient is also asubscriber to the network or by having the network service providerenter information that is obtained from personal data lists that arecommercially available. Additionally, information is also input tonetwork database 122 through normal use of the present invention. Forexample, when a sender sends an e-mail document to an intendedrecipient, all information entered by the sender into network 120 whensending the message is automatically entered into the database. In thismanner, information is input to database 122 through normal use of thesystem by the subscriber, and thus does not necessarily have to be inputby a separate data input step that is specifically intended forinputting information into the database.

[0016] In the situation where there is either no information containedin database 122 for an intended recipient or where there is informationcontained in the database for a particular intended recipient, e.g., thename of the intended recipient, but there is no e-mail address availablefor the intended recipient, the sending party will be provided with therecognized name of the intended recipient, as recognized by speechrecognition software 124, and will be prompted to provide an e-mailaddress for the intended recipient.

[0017] In order to compose an e-mail message for transmission to anintended recipient, the sender will orally speak the message to bedelivered into network 120. As mentioned previously, network 120contains speech recognition software 124. Speech recognition software124 will convert the oral message into a text format by utilizing knownspeech-to-text conversion software. Once the oral message is convertedinto a text format, network 120 will format the text-formatted documentinto an e-mail message and transmit the e-mail message to the intendedrecipient by utilizing the intended recipient's e-mail address, whichhas been determined through the process as described previously.

[0018] Currently known speech recognition software has limitations withrespect to the library of words that can be recognized. For example, notall voice recognition software programs will be able to recognize wordsthat relate solely to a particular segment of the population. Forexample, words that are commonly used by medical personnel are notusually words that are commonly used in the general population.Therefore, most general purpose voice recognition systems will notcontain these words in their database. However, there are voicerecognition systems that are specifically designed to be utilized withspeech that is specific to a particular segment of the population. Thesevoice recognition systems are generally known as restricted domainsystems.

[0019] Because a particular sending party may desire to send a messagethat contains words that may not be contained in a general purposespeech recognition software program, but that may only be contained in a“restricted domain” speech recognition program, network 120 containsrestricted domain speech recognition programs. Network 120 will querythe sending party as to whether they desire to utilize a restricteddomain speech recognition program. If the sending party realizes thattheir message contains words that are not commonly used, the sendingparty would select from a menu of restricted domains that would beprovided to the sending party by network 120. The sending party wouldthen select the restricted domain appropriate to their message andnetwork 120 would utilize this restricted domain voice recognitionprogram to recognize the speech of the sending party.

[0020] If the sending party does not select a restricted domain softwareprogram upon call initiation and the network is not able to recognizethe spoken message of the sending party because it contains words thatare not contained in the general purpose speech recognition software,the network will inform the sender that the speech cannot be recognizedand will prompt the user to select a restricted domain for speechinterpretation that may possibly contain the spoken words.

[0021] After the network composes the electronic mail message byinterpreting and converting the voice message, and before transmittingthe e-mail message, network 120 will audibly provide the sending partywith the name, e-mail address, and message content of the e-mail messageas converted from the voice message of the sender. The name that network120 provides to the sender for verification is the name that isrecognized and interpreted by the speech recognition software as inputby the sender. The e-mail address is that address either accessed fromdatabase 122 or input by the sender. The message content of the e-mailmessage is the converted voice message as input by the sender. Byreviewing this information, the sending party is able to verify that thespeech recognition software accurately recognized and converted thevoice message as input by the sender.

[0022] The sender can modify any incorrect information in the e-mailmessage before transmission of the e-mail message. The sending party caninput corrected information for the intended recipient by speakingcorrected information into network 120.

[0023] When the text document is transmitted to the intended recipient,the e-mail address of the sending party is included in the e-mailmessage. This feature is desirable to enable the recipient to reply tothe e-mail.

[0024] In an alternative embodiment, when sending the e-mail message tothe intended recipient, it is not required that network 120 convert theactual spoken message of the sending party into a text message fortransmission as an electronic mail message. Network 120 could insteadgenerate an electronic mail message for the intended recipient andattach the actual subject matter of the message as a wave audio file(.wav) attachment to the e-mail message. In this manner, network 120would convert and save the oral message as an electronic file, attachthe file to the e-mail message that is generated by network 120, andtransmit the e-mail message and attached file to the intended recipient.Thus, network 120 would not be required to convert the spoken messageinto a text message but rather would only be required to save the spokenmessage as an electronic file and attach this file to the e-mailmessage. This elimination of the requirement to interpret and convertthe spoken message to a text message would reduce the capabilitiesrequired of the speech recognition software because the speechrecognition software now would only be required to interpret theaddressing information spoken by the sender and not the actual subjectmatter of the spoken message. If network 120 also had access to otherelectronic files of the sender, e.g., those saved on a web page of thesender, the sender could also attach these files to the e-mail messagefor transmission to the intended recipient as well.

[0025] After the text message is transmitted, network 120 will notifythe sender of the status of transmitting the message to the intendedrecipient while the sender is still connected to the network. Thenetwork will notify the sender as to whether the transmission wassuccessful or not.

[0026] As mentioned previously, the present invention also has utilityfor an intended recipient of a voice message who does not have access toa telephone for receiving the voice message. In order to receive a voicemessage as an electronic mail message instead, the receiving party, whois a subscriber to network 120, provides information to network 120 thatthe recipient desires to receive voice messages as electronic mailmessages. A voice messaging service is provided to the subscriber, i.e.,the intended recipient, by network 120. The intended recipient's desiresfor the format for receipt of voice messages can be stored in database122.

[0027] In operation, when a calling party attempts to place a call tothe intended recipient and the intended recipient does not answer thecall, network 120 provides the calling party with the opportunity toleave a message for the called party. Network 120 will query the callingparty as to whether the calling party desires to leave a message for thecalled party. If the calling party does desire to leave a message forthe called party, network 120 will check database 122 to determine ifthe called party desires to receive messages as voice messages or aselectronic mail messages. It is desired to determine this in advance ofthe calling party actually leaving a message for the called partybecause if the called party desires electronic mail messages, network120 may have to prompt the calling party for selection of a restricteddomain for speech recognition software, as described previously. Thismay be desirable in order for network 120 to be able to accuratelyinterpret the voice message by utilizing speech recognition software124.

[0028] If the called party has not specifically designated that theydesire to receive voice messages as e-mail messages, but upon checkingthe desires of the intended recipient the network determines that thevoice mail box of the intended recipient is full, a default instructioncould be provided to the network to transmit the message to therecipient as an e-mail message in this circumstance. In this manner,instead of the calling party not being able to leave any message for thecalled party because the called party's voice mail box is full, thecalling party would still be able to transmit a message for the calledparty as an e-mail message.

[0029] After transmission of a text message, either at the direction ofthe sender or the intended recipient, network 120 stores informationrelated to the transmission of the text message in database 122. Thisinformation can be data that indicates the time of the transmission, thetime required for transmitting the message, the sender of the document,the recipient, the cumulative number of documents transmitted by aparticular sender or received by a particular recipient in any giventime period, and the method of transmission, e.g., e-mail message or faxdocument. Additional information can be stored depending upon therequirements of the sender, the recipient, and the network serviceprovider. This information can be utilized for accounting purposes orfor a variety of other purposes.

[0030] There are a variety of methods available for billing subscribersfor use of this network-based voice messaging system. The system couldeither charge for each message or could provide for an unlimited numberof messages for a set billing amount. Alternatively, the serviceprovided by the system can be provided as part of a larger servicepackage and thus not be billed as a separate service.

[0031] If the service is to be separately billed and if there is to be acharge for each message transmission, various methods are possible toaccount for, and thus bill for, each message transmission. The partythat designates that a particular voice message be transmitted as a textdocument could be billed for the service. That is, if the intendedrecipient is the network subscriber and the recipient desired that thevoice message be transmitted to them as a text message, the intendedrecipient could be billed for the service. If the sender of the textmessage is the subscriber to the network and desired that the message besent as a text message, the sender could be charged for the service.

[0032] Billing and payment for the service, if the service is separatelybilled, can be accomplished in a variety of ways. The subscriber couldenter a credit card number into the network at the time of each documenttransmission, the charges could be separately billed to the accountholder on a regular basis, or the charges could be included in theaccount holder's home or office phone bill.

[0033]FIG. 2 provides the process steps for practicing an embodiment ofthe present invention. Step 200 indicates the step where a voice messageis received at a service provider network. As previously disclosed, thenetwork may be, for example, a telephone network or an integratedservices network. In step 205, the sender and/or the intended recipientwill determine the format required for the received message. Based onthe desires of the sender and/or the intended recipient, the networkwill determine if a text message is to be transmitted to the intendedrecipient, step 210. If a text message is to be transmitted to theintended recipient, the network will determine the text message addressfor the recipient, step 215, and convert the oral message into a textmessage by utilizing known speech to text conversion software, step 220.As previously disclosed, if the message contains words that may not becontained in a general purpose speech recognition software program, arestricted domain program may be utilized, step 225.

[0034] After conversion of the voice message into a text message, thenetwork will audibly play the converted text message for the sendingparty so that the sending party can perform error correction on theconverted message, step 230, if required. In step 235, the network willtransmit the text message to the intended recipient and in step 240 thenetwork will store information related to the transmitted text documentin a database.

[0035] As stated previously, if a text message is not to be transmittedin response to step 210, the network will attempt to provide a voicemessage to the intended recipient, step 245. The network will determineif the voice mail box of the recipient is full, step 250. If the voicemail box for the intended recipient is full, the network will provide atext message to the intended recipient in accordance with steps 215-240.If the voice mail box is not full, a voice message will be provided tothe intended recipient, step 255.

[0036] Several variations on the disclosed embodiments are contemplated.In the disclosed embodiments, the network is disclosed as transmitting atext message to a single recipient; however, the network is capable oftransmitting the message to multiple recipients, e.g., broadcasting themessage. The sender could designate a single group identifier toidentify all intended recipients. The network database would containinformation that would identify each intended recipient that is includedin the group identifier and information related to those individuals,e.g., the e-mail address for each recipient. The network would then sendthe message to each individual that is included in the group identifier.

[0037] The present invention is also not limited to transmitting thetext message as an electronic mail message. As mentioned previously, thetransmitted text message can also be a facsimile document. The speechrecognition software would convert the spoken message to a text file.Known formatting software would convert the text file to a fax document.If the message is transmitted as a facsimile document, the recipient'sreceiving apparatus 130 could be a personal computer that is capable ofreceiving fax documents or could be a standardized facsimile machine. Ifthe message is converted into a facsimile format, it would not bepossible to attach wave files (.wav) or other files to the facsimilemessage, as can be done and as was described in the electronic mailcontext.

[0038] Additionally, it is not required that a receiving party of avoice mail message pre-indicate, i.e., before receipt of the voice mailmessage, their desires for receiving the message to network 120, e.g.,as an electronic mail message or a voice mail message. If a voice mailmessage is received for an intended recipient and no information isstored in database 122 with respect to the recipient's desires for theformat for the message, network 120 will deliver the voice mail messageto the intended recipient's voice mail box. If the intended recipientthen desires to receive the message as a text document, e.g., as ane-mail message or a facsimile document, the recipient will communicatetheir desires to network 120 and network 120 will convert and transmitthe message to the intended recipient as a text document, as describedpreviously.

[0039] As described above, a network-based voice messaging system isprovided. The disclosed embodiments are illustrative of the various waysin which the present invention may be practiced. Other embodiments canbe implemented by those skilled in the art without departing from thespirit and scope of the present invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for transmitting an oral message to anintended recipient comprising the steps of: receiving an oral message ata network for an intended recipient from a sending party; receiving aformat instruction from the sending party to convert the oral message toa text message; converting the oral message to a text message; andtransmitting the text message to the intended recipient.
 2. The methodof claim 1 wherein said oral message is received at said network over atelephone transmission channel.
 3. The method of claim 1 furthercomprising the step of entering identification information for theintended recipient into a database resident in said network.
 4. Themethod of claim 1 wherein said text message is an electronic mailmessage.
 5. The method of claim 1 wherein said text message is afacsimile document.
 6. The method of claim 3 further comprising the stepof determining a facsimile phone number for the intended recipient byaccessing said database.
 7. The method of claim 3 further comprising thestep of determining an electronic mail address for the intendedrecipient by accessing said database.
 8. The method of claim 1 furthercomprising the step of notifying the sender of the oral message of thestatus of transmitting said text message to the intended recipient. 9.The method of claim 1 wherein said network is an integrated servicesnetwork.
 10. The method of claim 1 wherein said network is a telephonenetwork.
 11. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step ofstoring information in said network related to the transmitted textmessage.
 12. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step ofbilling the intended recipient of said text message.
 13. The method ofclaim 1 further comprising the step of billing the sender of the oralmessage.
 14. A method for transmitting an oral message to an intendedrecipient comprising the steps of: receiving an oral message at anetwork for an intended recipient from a sending party; determining arequired format for transmitting the oral message to the intendedrecipient by said network, wherein the required format for transmittingthe oral message may be specified by either the sending party or theintended recipient; and transmitting the oral message to the intendedrecipient in the required format.
 15. The method of claim 14 wherein thestep of transmitting the oral message to the intended recipient in therequired format includes the step of converting the oral message to atext message.
 16. The method of claim 15 further comprising the step ofconverting said text message to a second oral message and audiblyproviding the second oral message to the sending party prior totransmitting the text message to the intended recipient.
 17. Anetwork-based voice messaging system comprising: a service providernetwork, wherein said network receives a voice message for an intendedrecipient; said network including: voice recognition software forconverting said voice message into a text message wherein said networktransmits the converted voice message to an intended recipient as a textmessage; and an intended recipient database, said intended recipientdatabase containing identification information and message addressinginformation for a plurality of intended recipients.
 18. Thenetwork-based voice messaging system of claim 17 wherein said textmessage is an electronic mail message.
 19. The network-based voicemessaging system of claim 17 wherein said text message is a facsimiledocument.
 20. The network-based voice messaging system of claim 17wherein said network is an integrated services network.
 21. Thenetwork-based voice messaging system of claim 17 wherein said network isa telephone network.
 22. A method for transmitting a message to anintended recipient comprising the steps of: receiving an oral messageintended for a recipient at a network; storing said oral message as awave audio file; orally receiving an electronic mail address for theintended recipient at the network; generating an electronic mail messagefor the intended recipient by the network; attaching said wave audiofile to said electronic mail message; and transmitting said electronicmail message to the intended recipient.